According to sources at the New York Times and elsewhere, the National Security Agency has been listening to our conversations ever since Sept. 11, 2001. The NSA monitoring effort was supposed to have ended in 2007. However, the Justice Department just released a statement accusing the giant spy agency with continuing the practice.

NSA is charged with monitoring foreign threats and as such has built the world’s largest communications monitoring capability, consisting of acres of computers with the singular purpose of monitoring communications from any source around the globe.
 
However, the Justice Department action has curtailed the NSA mission because of allegations that the agency is listening to American citizens that may have been identified as a potential threat.
The questions we American’s should be asking are, “How do Americans become identified as potential threats? – And, by Whom?”
 
Does a crack over the phone to a brother or sister about his or her exploding barbecue grill put us on the list? Does an excited utterance in an email about killing someone, make us a target for NSA’s listening net? Can we be singled out for telling a joke about Barack Obama’s new dog?
 
There are no answers to those questions. No government official or agency has released a list of terms and/or offenses that the NSA considers a threat other then not being able to say the word, ‘bomb’ on an airplane..
 
Part of the problem stated by the Justice Department is that from Sept. 11, 2001 until 2007, NSA was not required to obtain a properly authorized search warrant before listening to Americans on the phone, reading emails, or monitoring cell phone conversations, text messages, and more.
 
Apparently, that practice of unauthorized listening continued until now, when the Justice Department decided to take control of the situation and demand that NSA go through legal channels and obtain warrants before monitoring Americans.
Even though Congress created a law in 2007 requiring warrants or at least court approval before listening to Americans, NSA allegedly continued the practice.
 
We here at TBN wonder how much the NSA has been paying attention to Web sites? Could our faithful TBN reader comments have put some of our readers under suspicion?
 
Wonder who has been listened to lately and if the NSA enjoys what they see here on good old TBN? Perhaps not, but maybe so. Hmmmm ….